Seanad debates

Monday, 24 May 2021

Health and Criminal Justice (Covid-19) (Amendment) Bill 2021: Second Stage

 

10:30 am

Photo of Paddy BurkePaddy Burke (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister to the House. He has had a difficult time in his first year as Minister for Health and I congratulate him on the great work he is doing under difficult circumstances.

Many people have had a tough time. We in the public service, including the Civil Service, have been well looked after and all of us on the public purse have much to be thankful for, but many small businesses and people in the hospitality and services industries are at their wits' end. As Senator McDowell asked, when we look back, will we see that something could have been done differently?We have had several debates on Covid-19 during the past 12 months but they have all been in the format of statements. Perhaps such debates could be structured differently. When one makes a statement during such a debate at times one wonders if anybody is listening and perhaps nobody is listening. Perhaps such debates could be structured in a different way to ensure we get something constructive from them. Senator McDowell has put his finger on it. We are here at a crunch time to extend the time limit and we have not said whether we learned anything from the past six or eight months. We should have learned much from the last few lockdowns. The Government came to the conclusion people are safer outdoors but it was nearly pushing everybody indoors given that people could not travel beyond 5 km.

I come from a large county which has some of the finest walks in the world but they are miles away from everybody, even within the county. People could not travel to those areas and one would wonder why. They would be much healthier in those areas than inside a house. That is an aspect we should have considered. Perhaps Senator McDowell was right in what he said about a county lockdown or perhaps a regional lockdown. Some of the problem arose from what happened in the Minister's county when people from Dublin travelled to the Wicklow Mountains in large numbers and perhaps the small degree of bad press at that stage was part of the problem.

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